


The Blacksmith

by kikibug13



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Choices, F/M, Language, Love Triangles, fidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The realization of the order for Hansel's gun has more memories for Gretel than weapon-making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blacksmith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



> This is a love-story-that's-never-realized. 
> 
> With a little luck, I'll have a bonus fic for the bawdier part of the Hansel and Gretel request to add to the gift, later!

He was a smith, his name was Frederick, and she fell in love with him. She thought he fell in love with her, too.

Gretel was seventeen, her brother just the right age to get into all sorts of non-witch-related trouble because of the way lads were looking at her, and, for a very short span of time, she didn't care. She only had eyes for one, and he was not a boy. In fact, he was twice her age and, as a man of craft, and good at it, he was married.

His wife was pale, and, from the word in the town, sickly, but she took good care of him, and he of her and their two girls. Gretel had no intent to break into that, she and Hansel had only stopped there because they had heard of Frederick's skill and Hansel was in need of a new weapon. A gun. They had a design, from somebody who'd said would work, if it was possible to make it - so now they were looking for a smith who could. And would.

As usual, she had taken the lead in the talk with the smith, when they came into town. Far from usual, by a quarter of an hour later, she was stammering and trying to string sentences together, and yet the man was hanging onto her every word.

He hadn't been certain he could make it, but he was willing to try (which was more than they'd gotten in the previous two places). He said that it would need a special casing to make sure it didn't overheat and blow up in Hansel's hands; Gretel had been in agreement that, if such a thing had to be done, if it was needed, then it should be done.

She did not want to leave the smithy, after.

"You want nothing for yourself?"

"I'm fine with things that shoot arrows, thanks."

"Those are also made in smithies."

"I've noticed that."

"Are you sure you don't want something?"

"I want--" She had to swallow, before she blurted out something that she couldn't take back. "--to see my brother properly outfitted."

Frederick shot the idling youth a look that was unwarranted-dark. It surprised her. "Your brother is important to you? Should I--" It was his turn to catch himself, "--prepare a few drawings, for the next time that you show up?"

"We can stay in town and wait."

"I'd like that-- I mean, that would be convenient. Drawings first, then we discuss materials and pricing, if I can make it work."

"Fair... that sounds fair."

And then words were gone and she hadn't wanted to walk out the door, but then a little blonde girl had run in, screaming about her daddy and telling him how mommy was almost ready for supper, but she didn't let her and Clara have candied apples from last fall, and Frederick sighed and tore his gaze away from her to look down at his daughter. The intense expression melted away, his face instead splitting into a wide, bright smile, and he picked the girl up on his shoulder (such strong hands, he must have... and his arms filled the sleeves and shoulders of his tunic to bursting), chatting with her.

It took Gretel a few moments to realize that they were not wanted, and she gave a little 'oh...' that made Hansel snort. She flicked the back of his neck, for that.

"You were daydreaming, sis."

"I was fine!"

"Yes, fine, and making cow-eyes at him. Except that won't work, will it? He's taken and all."

"Hansel, shut up, or I swear you'll end up with a split lip to go with the fucking fading black eye."

"Oh, come on. You wouldn't do to your brother what that sick witch wanted to do to me, right?"

"... maybe. But if you keep pushing me, we might get to find out."

"Gretel, if I didn't know you, I'd have thought you besotted. And if he weren't a married man, I'd have thought _him_ besotted right back. You stop being ridiculous, I'll stop pointing it out! ... Gretel?"

He looked about, spotting her where she'd stopped in her tracks.

"Gretel?"

"No, he can't be. It wouldn't be right."

"Well, that's why I'm not in some corn wagon, tossing kernels at you for getting besotted with him!"

"Hansel, it's not like that..."

"That's what it looked like!"

"No, no, it's not that you _choose_ to become besotted or not. It just happens. Not that I'm... besotted or anything. We only fucking talked once!"

"Like I said! If it was anyone else, that's what I'd call it."

"But it's me."

"Yeah. So I'm calling it fucking confusing."

"Thank you, Hansel."

"Always happy to help, sis!"

The stupid boy wasn't even ironic.

*

 

The days that followed were frustrating. And exhilarating. Gretel wasn't sure which one of the two was more applicable, wasn't even sure if she _wanted_ to be sure.

Frederick had his arms full, with the stupid gun. Gretel knew the design had been special, but not quite _how_ special. It took a thousand little details, and all of them made especially for it, and there were questions, and she and Hansel got into the habit of spending at least an hour or two at the smithy every day, together or each apart.

"Is the extra kick provided by this strengthening here going to be really necessary?" The smith kept most of the skepticism out of his voice or even face, but she could hear it, anyway.

Gretel sighed, blowing a strand of hair away from her eyes. Frederick's hand twitched, large soot-covered palm moving half an inch from the drawing, then settling back. "Yes. Unfortunately, it is. You do know what we do, don't you?"

"I know. I'm not sure I believe it, lass, but I do know."

Gretel narrowed her eyes at him, mouth firming into a line, but - she couldn't get as angry with him as she wanted to. There was - so much curiosity in his eyes, paired with the doubt. And so much that looked to her like longing...

But that couldn't be. Or, if it was there, it had to get limited to looks alone, anyway. He had a wife and family. He was true to them, and she did not want that to change, not on her account, in particular. God fucking knew how rare honesty like that existed. Yet... the look was there. And she didn't shy away from it, and it made her anger dissipate. That couldn't be good.

"Do you not believe the witches part, or the part where we go after them?"

"The part where so much is necessary. I mean, they're just people, right?"

"No." She had to stop this thought right now. "No, they are not just people, and thinking of them as 'just people,' or, even worse, as 'just women'--"

"I was not!"

"--may get you and your family killed. They are strong, fast, they don't care about hurting people - they enjoy it immensely - they don't care about laws, either. They can break through sturdy walls and solid doors, they _can_ fly and deflect weapons - even bullets. They are _not_ invulnerable, but they're pretty fucking hard to pin down, let alone get dead. So, yes, the extra kick? Necessary. The special gun at all? Absolutely. _Are_ you going to fucking do it?"

When she focused on him again, the rant easing out of her system, she found him smiling. No, grinning. Like there was nothing else he'd rather be seeing or hearing right now. Which was preposterous.

"... don't look like you heard the best thing in your life, _Smith_. It's not."

"Oh, I-- I'm sorry." He looked down, fingers tracing an outline across the papers in front of him. "It's not. You are."

Gretel's stomach gave a curious flutter at that. Like she'd stepped into one of those high-tree traps and it was raising her up and her insides were lagging after her. Somewhere. Her mouth went dry, and the awareness that there was only the two of them in the workshop returned to her with no warning.

"If you have any other questions," she managed, shortly, "I'll be in the inn. I believe my brother will be along shortly to answer some, too."

"Gretel, I'm so--" She gave him her best glare, still-young-but-very-practiced, and he changed that mid-sentence. "I'm so certain that you can handle yourself, especially after coming up against the witches you described, but... be cautious, at the inn's common room? It's..."

"Full of opinionated superstitious folk as don't know what to do with a woman who knows her letters, her numbers, and how to shoot an arrow. I know, I know, I won't set any fires." Beat, and she paused from walking out of the smithy. "While we still have work, here."

"I'd be best pleased if you can still come back to town, when this is over."

"I'm sure you will--" raised fist, to require his silence. "Things don't always come out the way that I plan them to. Ain't no bets on how it'll work, here. Sometimes they decide I'm no great miracle and ignore me. Sometimes they go for the pitchforks and torches. As though _I'd_ start making people explode from having stuffed themselves with crawlers or any of the weird stuff _they_ do. Fuckers."

"If you were a daughter of mine, I'd be chastising you over your language, right now."

"Well. Good thing I'm not, isn't it?"

The silence stretched and seemed to roil between them, and the smith swallowed. "A very good thing."

She shivered, then turned to take the final step out. "Good day, Master Frederick."

"Good day, Gretel."

It might have been her wishful thinking, but it seemed like he wanted to say something else, instead.

The talks got both easier and more frequent, as the work progressed. From plans and drawings to crafting and procuring the parts, the tooling of the gun. It was not a simple job, but the smith was indeed as good as had been spoken. As he had shown.

Gretel found herself spending half and hour at a time, just looking at the work of his hands. And arms, when there was hammer work, but the way his large fingers could make delicate elements and fit them together, without error - it was beautiful.

More than once, he caught her looking, and he smiled shyly at the attention. It was endearing, if it was not impossible.

One time, his wife caught her. The pale woman startled her, and started herself, too, before squeaking up an excuse and scurrying away.

Not that Gretel needed a reminder, that Frederick was not hers and would never be. It felt that it was nearly all she could think about, morning, noon, and night. Hansel was getting excited about getting his new toy and he could barely sit still, and he wondered at her. She'd usually be snapping at him and restless of her own, they had seldom stayed in one place for this long, before. They had seldom been _allowed_ to stay in one place this long, but, this time, they had brought business _to_ the town, instead of finding it here, the _other_ kind of business, and that seemed to make some difference.

She still got odd looks, for how she dressed and how she moved and how she talked. But the townsmen, the burghers and servants, didn't try to drive them out. And that was enough.

And then the rumors started.

They came first with a rickety cart that hauled a supply of beer from the next village. Rumors that made the townspeople grumble, but also yanked Gretel's attention well and truly away from the object of her--

Away from the smith. They probably had work to do.

Though tracking _this_ witch seemed to be a problem.

The surrounding villages did not believe in witches. For all of Hansel and Gretel's time in the town, all the stories that they had been asked to tell, the townsmen did not believe in witches, either, and it was difficult to get answers to any useful questions when they could get laughed at, instead.

And it was this disbelief that finally allowed the smith's wife to push her will, to show whose household Frederick belonged to. It seemed as though that had been a fight, for when the small cart with the smith and his family left for a small transport between towns turned into an enjoyment excursion... right into the dangerous area, the man looked down on Gretel while they passed her and his eyes seemed apologetic.

She would have insisted upon it happening, Elisabeth. Because why should they believe the weird, strange girl who was making sweet eyes at her husband? No, the impostor had to be proven wrong, and proven wrong in Frederick's very eyes, and in the eyes of their neighbors they must show how wonderful a family they were.

Gretel would say that, yes, they were. Whatever magic was working itself as the weapon took its oddly-shaped (obscene-shaped, from what little she had learned) completion, it was one that neither of them that had acted upon, neither in deed or in word, and that was how it was supposed to be.

(Even if her body woke her from odd dreams flushed and swollen and with desire.)

*

 

Such thoughts and dreams did not help with the search for the witch that they were still only _thinking_ was there. She was a tricky one, that witch, and the attacks were never conclusive and never lethal, that they knew about. It made the town even more dubious, but, when the pattern emerged, both Hansel and Gretel _knew_ that was a question of time.

And nobody would believe them. 

So it was that, when she struck, it was close to Gretel's heart. The witch caught Frederick and his wife and both girls, on their way back, a week after they had set out. Alone and after moonrise, the supposed safety and the summer's warm night lulling them along, out in the open as they hurried gently to return to their home.

Hansel and Gretel caught up with the witch before she had truly started, muttering about eating spleens and kidneys, but the fight with her went wrong. Fiery, burning wrong.

She tried to get them all out, Gretel did, her brother gasping on the ground with his knee bent out of shape and the burning building lighting him up enough that she could fucking _stitch him up_ , but she had to go back for them, one by one.

Starting with his younger daughter, Clara. Then his older. Then his wife.

A burning beam crashed down, smashing his head _and_ cutting her access to him as she was just opening the door to get him out, too. Gretel never could recall the hours that followed.

She came to in his workshop, her hands holding a second weapon that he had made, somehow, when she wasn't looking. It was a crossbow. One that fit perfectly in her arms, as though he had measured them, and it was... special. No less so than Hansel's gun. Instead of one arrow, it would shoot two, one above the other. Simultaneously, if she pulled the lever deep enough, or not, if she stopped in the middle position. And the two arrows were, in fact, show by two separate small bows. That could be split apart to shoot one arrow at each side, instead of two straight forward. Witches rarely worked in groups. But, when they did, she could not imagine a better weapon. It was for her. She knew, as surely as she knew their father had abandoned them, or that she could rely on Hansel, any day of their lives. She stared at the unsolicited gift, the sound of two little girls crying reminding her just why that was a problem.

She left extra pay - they would needed, she was sure, without the home's breadmaker - took the weapon she could truly come to depend on, and she and Hansel left, the smoke of charred human flesh impossible to clear from her nostrils, or the last horrified cry of Frederick the Smith before his head was bashed in, his clothes smouldering but his mind only now fully catching up with the reality of the danger. Too little, too late...

His name had been Frederick, and he'd been a blacksmith. When they left the village, the ashes still settling behind them, they didn't look back, and Gretel's step was certain and cocky as ever, her new crossbow cocked over her shoulder as the new gun was over her brother's.

But Hansel had to hold her as she cried herself to sleep, that night, as they hadn't had to do in years. That night, and many more nights to come.

One more thing they never talked about.


End file.
